The Review of Metaphysics

Founded in 1947, the Review of Metaphysics is a quarterly journal published by the Philosophy Education Society of the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. Its subject matter covers trade, technical and professional publications; philosophy; indexes, abstracts, reports, proceedings and bibliographies. Kenneth Rolling is the managing editor, Dr. Jude P. Dougherty is the editor and Justin West is the book review editor.

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Articles from Vol. 64, No. 1, September

Nietzsche's Unmodern Thinking: Globalization, the End of History, and "Great Events," GARY SHAPIRO In his four Unmodern Observations (Unzeitmassige Betrachtungen) of the 1870s, Nietzsche confronted early philosophical versions of positions more...

A Cognitive Theory of Thoughts, GOTTFRIED VOSGERAU and MATTHIS SYNOFZIK The nature and function of thoughts have been a central topic of philosophy from its ancient beginnings, yet its critical assessment was put forward in particular by the development...

ANSELM'S ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT in Proslogion 2 has been discussed and criticized so much that it is hard for us today to see its basic structure. The philosophical consensus seems to be that the argument is hopeless: it either begs the question against...

IN A NUMBER OF RECENT WORKS published just before and just after his death, Bernard Williams explored in great detail the very timely idea that there is an important internal connection between the practice of philosophy and the practice of history....

THERE IS NO DOUBT that the most original recent works on the Galileo affair have achieved new heights of erudition, documentation, and sophistication. These achievements have been made possible by a number of circumstances: the maturation of various...

THIS PAPER SEEKS to unify neurological and psychological phenomena by questioning the methodological foundations of cognitive science. A quantum physical interpretation of neurological processes is capable of explaining phenomenological data better...

The Hero and Asymmetrical Obligation. Levinas and Ricoeur in Dialogue, KATHERINE E. KIRBY In defending Levinas's ethical theory against Ricoeur's objections in Oneself as Another, a two-fold argument in regard to heroic action and the ordinary ethical...

Non-conceptual Experiential Content and Reason-giving, HEMDAT LERMAN According to John McDowell and Bill Brewer, our experiences have the type of content which can be the content of judgments--content which is the result of the actualization of...

The Myth of Factive Verbs, ALLAN HAZLETT Skilled Activity and the Causal Theory of Action, RANDOLPH CLARKE Skilled activity, such as shaving or dancing, differs in important ways from many of the stock examples that are employed by action theorists....

The Languages of Rights and of Human Rights, MARK PLATTS In an attempt to control the "ballooning" of (discourse about) human rights James Griffin proposes a theory of them grounded in their presumed aim of protecting what he calls "normative agency."...

What Is Wrong with Degenerate Souls in the Republic? ERA GAVRIELIDES The Republic splits the soul into three parts: the logistikon (reason), the thumoeides (spirit) and the epithumetikon (appetite). In a virtuous soul all the parts do their own...

Against Cartesian Mistrust: Cavell, Husserl and the Other Mind Sceptic, LILIAN ALWEISS This paper asks whether we should still be haunted by skepticism about other minds. It draws on the writings of Cavell and Husserl to show that there is some...

THIS DISCUSSION CONSIDERS some fundamental aspects of medieval Jewish moral psychology and moral epistemology, with emphasis on several of Maimonides' claims. The purpose is to explicate some connections between those aspects, but also to indicate...

Moral Transformation and the Love of Beauty in Plato's Symposium, SUZANNE OBDRZALEK This paper offers a new interpretation of Diotima's speech in Plato's Symposium. Diotima's purpose, in discussing the lower lovers, is to critique their eros as...

Constraints on Sceptical Hypotheses, JAMES R. BEEBE This essay examines the conditions which hypotheses must satisfy if they are to be used to raise significant skeptical challenges. It argues that skeptical hypotheses do not have to be logically,...

Compatibilism about Coincidence, THOMAS SATTIG It seems to be a platitude of common sense that distinct ordinary objects cannot coincide, that they cannot fit into the same place or be composed of the same parts at the same time. The paradoxes of...